


Sketches of Even

by fandomlimb



Category: SKAM (Norway), SKAM (TV)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lots of Heartbreak (I'm sorry!!!!), M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Poetry, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 21,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomlimb/pseuds/fandomlimb
Summary: This story jumps off from the night of the hotel scene and continues to explore Even and Isak's emotional/psychological states during that painful week up until the church concert scene. What was going through Even's mind? How was he dealing with his manic episode and subsequent depression? I also wanted to bring in some visuals since that is one Even's primary ways of communicating. I also do not claim to be in anyway an expert on Bipolar Disorder but wanted to try and understand Even's character a little more through the lens of his manic and depressive episodes.Story includes visuals, poetry, 3rd person and 1st person POV chapters. I am approaching this in collage fashion.<3





	1. Atom and Eve

 

What the alarmed hotel concierge and street gawkers were too shocked to understand, what the arresting officers who took him in for public lewdness did not even attempt to understand, what his parents and Sonja tried but failed to understand, but what Even hoped Isak would understand, actually what he was desperate for him to understand, was that everything was fine. More than fine actually! This was how it was all meant to be.

This was the moment where all the threads converged and connected them together, starting as far back as the Big Bang.

[Cut to: oozing pools of outer space lava bombarded by giant meteors; tsunami-sized waves splashing fire while enormous planetary masses collide at warp speeds; a seismic rush of destruction and rebirth, where all the parallel universes that ever were and ever will be are conceived in a combusting cosmic orgasmic seizure that stretches on for millions of years. (Think _The_ _Tree of Life_ creation sequence but twice as fast and with less somber music _._ Actually, no, make the whole sequence super slowed down. Everything in slo-mo so unbearably slow that the audience starts booing and rioting and throwing popcorn in fits of impotent rage. (At this point the whole “evolution of the world montage” is a cliché but you get the idea, right? Cosmic eruptions→ single-celled blobs and jellies→ fish and prehistoric ancestors of dolphins→ land mammals and birds and trees and sunflowers and all of human history compressed into 5 minutes of film. We’ve seen it so many times before no wonder the audience is fucking pissed.))].

The Big Bang led them here, from Atoms & Electrons to Adam & Eve. Except this time it was Adam & Adam. Or Isak & Even. Either way, it was fucking perfect.

Why didn’t they see? We were born as amoebas, we swam around in the murky oceans, breathing through gills and feeding off other single-celled life forms; but we made it on land! We took steps with our naked non-webbed feet. We emerged from that morass and somehow made it to Paradise [cut to: juices squirting as teeth bite sharply down into a shiny red apple; the pink slit of a snake’s forked tongue; a single drop of water dangling off the branch of a fig tree]. We have nothing to be scared of. We were born naked. We fuck naked. Why didn’t they see that this is the most pure and natural state for us? Why didn’t they understand that to be alive is to be naked, and it’s fucking bullshit that when Eve tasted the fruit of knowledge that’s when suddenly we were scared, that’s when we had to cover ourselves and hide ourselves in shame.

Even knew scared. Even knew how to hide. Even knew shame. But he was done with that. He wanted to be free and naked all the time now, even while doing something as trivial as getting McDonalds at 1:00 am in the middle of winter in downtown Oslo.

He exited through the hotel's circular doors and was greeted with a slap of frigid night air. Goose bumps erupted all over his unprotected body. He laughed. And laughed again to see his breath hanging in front of him like a cloudy question mark.

* * *

   
The sirens blared and deafened because that is their job.

The lights flashed blue and blinding and disorienting because that is their job.

The officers arrested him because that is their job.  
  
The officers gave him a blanket because that is also their job.

_Are you willing to cooperate?_  
_Are you a minor?_  
_What is your name and date of birth?_  
_Do you have any form of identification?_  
_Where do you live?_  
_Are you currently under the influence of alcohol?_  
_Can you walk in a straight line?_  
_We will need you to take this Breathalyzer test._  
_Are you currently a danger to yourself or others?_  
_Have you ingested any illegal substances or mind-altering drugs?_  
_Are you on any form of prescribed medication?_  
_Do you have an official diagnosis of your mental illness?_  
_We need proof that you are not operating under a rational state of mind._  
_We will need a copy of your official diagnosis papers, medical record and proof of your current medications._  
_Do you have a prior arrest record?_  
_We will need to perform an official mental assessment._  
_We may need to detain you overnight._  
_We may or may not have to press charges._  
_Is there someone you can call?_

His mother cried when he told her because that is her job.  
  
His parents arrived at the station in less than 20 minutes with his medical records because that is also their job.

Sonja arrived at the police station with his clothes and phone and wallet.

But that is not her job anymore. It should have never been her job at all.

* * *

   
After his parents and Sonja arrived. After their tears and hugs. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting at the station to see if he would be allowed to go home that night or not, Even was caught up in a wave of anger so profound it wrenched his breath from his lungs and all he could do was let his eyes cry and cry and cry without his permission or acknowledgement. The blinking and buzzing fluorescent lights bore into him like an awl to his eyeballs. The smell filling his nostrils was a nauseating mix of linoleum and coffee and puke and the chemicals in Sharpie pens. So many pointless pieces of paper covered every spare inch of every desk. Folders upon folders were perilously stacked everywhere he looked, each one no doubt filled with the same stupid questions he had been asked over and over for the last however many years. He rode out each surge of anger as best he could but he was never prepared in the way you can be for an actual fistfight or a boxing match. At least then you can brace your body, raise your hands, try to block your opponents’ next move, think on your feet for the best counterattack. This was like getting punched over and over again to the same bruised spot in your lungs and heart and brain that never knew what it was like to be free of broken tissue, free of damage. He was trapped. Again. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. 

It was one of those words that stop having any meaning once you say it to yourself so many times. Or think it so many times. It stops making any sense. It stops mattering. Everything stops mattering. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image link if it does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/gmsank79stdi0e7/even1.jpg?dl=0)
> 
> [*my tumblr*](http://fandomlimb.tumblr.com/)


	2. Bipolar Misadventure Park

When Even and his parents finally got home from the station at 4:30 AM, he spent the rest of the night into the morning riding his least favorite and most compulsory rollercoaster at _Bipolar Misadventure Park_ : The Rapid Cycle Pendulum Swing. Cost of admission to the park includes but is not limited to: sleep, hope, hygiene, coherent thoughts, self-esteem, school grades and attendance record, and the ongoing emotional strain and fatigue of your closest loved ones. Other rides at the park include: The Lazy River Styx of Despair, The Manic Anti-Gravity Launcher, The Runaway Train of Thought, The Euphoric Ferris Wheel, The Well, The Dare Devil Doom Drop and The Haunted House of Past and Future Fuck-Ups. All rides at the park are operated by a surly teenager who hates his job and will adjust the length of each ride and the intensity level just for the sadistic fun of it.

The Rapid Cycle Pendulum Swing is usually preceded and followed by a hodgepodge of several different rides all shoddily slapped together and occurring randomly and usually when you least want them to. There’s Splash Canyon (you are drenched in night sweats and tears); The Mind Racer/Eraser (you try unsuccessfully to move your body faster than the speed of your thoughts); the lurching, jerky and stomach-churning upward climb of The Other Shoe Will Drop At Any Moment But You Are Strapped in Now and Can’t Get Off Coaster (made out of wood for that extra special feeling that the entire structure could collapse at any minute!); The High Flyer; The Helter Skelter Slide; The Crash Mountain.

Even hadn’t snatched more than three or four hours of consecutive sleep each night in the past week at least. The emergency supply of benzodiazepines his mother held onto for his severe insomnia and manic episodes would have helped him sleep but he didn’t want that right now. She was going to call his psychotherapist first thing anyway to schedule the first possible appointment for Monday.

There was still something he needed to do, something that he needed full concentration for and he didn’t want to be slowed down by meds yet to do it.

Isak.

He thought about going to Isak’s apartment that very minute and explaining everything. He needed to explain. He needed to make him understand. It was all just a big misunderstanding!

Isak.

Even’s face burned.

He hadn’t meant to leave him alone. He hadn’t meant to lie.

He thought about calling him but it was only 5:14 AM.

There was no way he could leave his house right now without his parents’ noticing and stopping him. He could see a sliver of light in the gap of his closed bedroom door and hear his parents’ muffled voices in the living room.

He could climb out his window instead. He could tie his sheets or blankets or towels together and form a rope ladder. He stripped his bed of its sheets and started twisting them together. They were too thick. He’d need to cut them into strips. But he didn’t keep any scissors in his room anymore. He tried ripping them instead but it was useless.

He thought about calling him but it was only 5:26 AM.

The jump down from his window was only two stories. He might twist an ankle but would probably otherwise survive intact. Then he remembered the last time he’d jumped from this height. He still had the old pair of crutches.

He thought about texting him. But what could he possibly say over text that would get it right? He needed to get it right. How could he possibly make it right?

He thought about calling him but it was only 5:29 AM.

It was actually really funny when you thought about it. If Isak had seen the hotel manager’s face when he had walked into the lobby! It was actually hilarious.

Even started laughing but he was also crying at the same time. He was so tired.

He put his headphones on and listened to a waterfall.

He watched a movie of himself: he was behind the waterfall, hidden from sight, out of danger. The whooshing sound of the rushing of surging water soothed him. He reached out his hand and felt the water pressure slip between each of his fingers; mist sprayed his face and cooled his overheated skin. He pressed his face against the cool wet wall of rocks. He screamed but the waterfall swallowed the sound. He cried but the mist washed away his tears.

Isak was with him now behind the waterfall.

Even tried to tell him everything he had ever been too scared to tell him but the waterfall drowned out his words. Even shouted as loud as he could but Isak couldn’t hear him over the deafening wall of whirring water.

“I’m sorry.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“It’s better this way.” Even kissed him and jumped off the rocky precipice.

Even gasped and tore off his headphones.

He thought about calling him but it was only 5:38 AM.

He switched the channel to another movie in his brain instead. This is the movie of every time he could have told Isak the truth but didn’t.

* * *

FADE IN:

INT. ISAK’S KITCHEN – NIGHT

ISAK is pouring half-empty beer cans into his sink. EVEN enters kitchen and ambles over to sink. EVEN suppresses the need to start kissing ISAK immediately and without restraint.

ISAK  
Didn’t you take a cab with the others?

EVEN  
I have my bike.  
(beat)  
Good times tonight with…uh…Emma?

ISAK  
(snorts and looks really irked in a cute way)  
She’s keen.

EVEN  
You know Sonja and I have been dating since we were 15, right?

ISAK  
Ok.

EVEN  
And…I can tell we are drifting further and further apart. But I can’t dump Sonja.

ISAK  
Ok?

EVEN  
Cause if I dump Sonja she’ll think it’s because…I’m tired of her controlling me and taking care of me like she’s my nurse not my girlfriend.

ISAK  
(crinkles his nose in absolutely adorably confused way)  
Why would she be your nurse? Are you sick?

EVEN  
Not physically, it’s not like I have cancer or anything. But yes. I am. I have bipolar disorder.

ISAK  
So you’re crazy?

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. ISAK’S BEDROOM – DAY

EVEN and ISAK are lying together in bed. They kiss. They rub noses. EVEN has not felt this happy or content with another person for years. His heart is full to bursting but he tries to keep it together. They are smoking weed and chatting in between slow, lingering kisses.

ISAK  
There is probably in a parallel universe another Isak and Even lying in the exact same way in the exact same place. Only that you know…there are probably like different colored curtains or something.

EVEN  
So…yellow curtains then?

ISAK  
Yeah.

EVEN  
I think that’s enough weed for you.

ISAK  
So you’ve never thought about this stuff before?

EVEN  
Well, yeah. But it makes me feel so…I don’t know…lonely or something.

ISAK  
It’s so fascinating!

EVEN  
Nah, I don’t like it.

ISAK  
Why not?

EVEN  
I don’t know. It freaks me out. Not in a scary movie way, but more in a being alone way. Like, it’s all in your head. It’s you, alone, with all of your thoughts. You can’t escape them. The only way is to die.

ISAK  
Do you mean suicide? Have you ever thought about that before?

EVEN  
Yes.

ISAK  
Seriously?

EVEN  
Yes. Does that scare you?

ISAK  
I mean, sure. Yes of course it’s scary. Do you want to talk about it?

EVEN  
Yes. And no. I mean, I’m not suicidal. Right now. But it’s complicated because...I have Bipolar Disorder. And sometimes that means I can’t control my own actions or thoughts.

ISAK  
What do you mean?

EVEN  
Having Bipolar is like a constant fight in the mind. When I’m manic, it’s like, anything is possible. The future is bright and perfect and I can do anything. I could fly if I wanted. I can walk on water. Logically, I know better, but emotionally I don’t give a fuck, so anything can happen. And I’m powerless to stop it. And when I’m depressed, well, it’s like being hit with a huge wave of emptiness. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Everything is my fault. I’m worthless. And everyone hates me because I am lifeless and irritable and tired and tiresome and paranoid and boring and needy and miserable and scared and scary. And that’s when suicidal thoughts creep in sometimes. I don’t expect you to understand. Most people don’t.

FADE OUT

 

* * *

 

There were many more scenes he could rewrite and rewatch but it was making him too sad. He was a coward, plain and simple.

He looked at the clock: 5:57 AM.

What had Sonja said in the station? He hadn’t really been paying attention at the time but now he remembered. She’d seen him in the street. She’d told him.

It was over.

Isak probably hated him.

Even climbed into his bed (he didn’t bother putting the sheets back on). He covered his face with his hands and wept.

 

* * *

 

He awoke with a start and looked at his phone: 10:06 AM.

His eyes were sticky. His throat was dry. He felt like his body was covered in a layer of grime. His muscles ached.

But he felt better than when he’d fallen asleep. So much better. He actually wanted to get out of bed. He knew he could make things right with Isak. It was so simple.

He didn’t have the words himself to explain everything he needed to. But he had other people’s words. If he could only find the perfect words. Words to express the storm of his heart and the battle raging in his mind. Maybe then. Maybe Isak would forgive him.

 _The noise in my head, the curse of the talented_  
_Strong communicator, vagabond, I gallivant around the equator_  
_And that would get me off the radar_  
_It’s so intense, I’m on my Lilo and Stitch_  
_Pour my Pino Grigio and Cris with some lime what is this?_  
_An immaculate version of Me and My Bitch by Biggie_  
_With all respect cause you the only one that gets me_  
_And I’m alone, and I realize that when I get home_  
_I wanna go through my red and my cherry_  
_Yes I’m alone, and I realize when I get home_  
_I wanna go through my red and my cherry_  
_Yeah, yeah, let’s pour some cherry wine_  
_Everything’s good, everything’s fine_  
_Yeah, yeah we bring it every time_  
_Yeah, pour a little cherry wine_  
_Yeah, ayo Salaam, yeah, I think they know the time_  
_Everything’s good, everything’s fine_  
_Yeah, pour a little cherry wine, yeah_

 _Life is good, no matter what_  
_Life is good, life is good_


	3. Puzzle Pieces

Isak had barely slept. His eyes were glazed over and stinging from staring at his computer screen for so long. He kept reading the same sentences over and over. He kept hearing Sonja’s voice in his head.

_He’s manic. He’s not well. Do you think he’s in love with you? He’s not. It’s just a sick idea he has right now. Can you please just stay away?_

Was it all his fault?

Of course it was his fault.

He had misread and misinterpreted everything.

_Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is a mental disorder with periods of depression and periods of elevated mood. The elevated mood is significant and is known as mania or hypomania, depending on its severity, or whether symptoms of psychosis are present._

Symptoms of _psychosis_ are present.

Psychosis. Psychotic. Psychopath. Psycho.

Isak clicked open a new tab for the clinical definition of psychosis to combat the images that had immediately played across his brain: a screaming naked woman being stabbed repeatedly in the shower; Christian Bale smattered in blood; Even, naked, sauntering out of their hotel room like it was totally normal. Isak’s face flushed with shame and embarrassment.

_During mania, an individual behaves or feels abnormally energetic, happy or irritable. Individuals often make poorly thought out decisions with little regard to the consequences._

_Poorly thought out decisions_.

Was Isak just one of those poorly thought out decisions? Isak could barely think straight when he was around Even, so you could also say that all of Isak’s decisions had been _poorly thought out_. Isak had left Emma on Halloween without a second thought. He’d followed Even in through the window and pushed him into the pool. He’d kissed Even and clamored for him despite knowing that he and Sonja had been together for so long. Thinking never really entered the picture when it came to Even: just the driving need to be close to him, to chase the erupting feeling of joy and excitement inside him when their lips and bodies touched, when Even ran his fingers through Isak’s hair, when Even smiled at him like he was the only person in the room that mattered.

_Abnormally happy._

Last night (could it only have been just last night?), Isak had been kissing Even in the glass elevator with the whole of Oslo spread out before them, feeling his hope and happiness soar with every climbing floor; he’d felt the prickling heat of their naked bodies entwined, moving as one and driving Isak toward a perfect climax. Before everything crashed and burned, before Even snapped, Isak had been happier than he’d ever been his entire life. Was that “abnormal”? Did falling in love make you crazy? Was Isak crazy for thinking Even could ever and had ever loved him back?

_During periods of depression there may be crying, a negative outlook on life, and poor eye contact with others. The risk of suicide among those with the illness is high at greater than 6 percent over 20 years, while self-harm occurs in 30–40 percent._

Isak, age 4, being sent to stay with his aunt for two months while his mom was “away”. Isak, age 5, playing hide-and-seek with his mom and eventually falling asleep in the cool, close darkness under his bed when she never came in to find him. Isak, age 10, cleaning up shards of a broken plate from the kitchen floor. Isak, age 11, desperately wanting to cancel his birthday party. Isak, age 12, picking up the groceries and her prescriptions from the pharmacy on his way home from school and hating the pity he saw in the cashier’s eyes. Isak, age 13, listening for the sound of her breathing and pleading for her to get out of bed today.

Isak turned off that channel. He could not reconcile Even with these memories. Even, who was all easy smiles and confidence? Even, who lit up every room he entered and could turn Isak’s insides to a butterfly garden with just one flick of his eyebrows? Isak couldn’t believe that his mom and Even were remotely similar. His mom was crazy. Even wasn’t crazy, was he? He couldn’t be. But he was.

_Manic Episode: a distinct period of elevated, enthusiastic or irritable mood lasting at least one week (or less than one week if hospitalization is required), that includes at least three of the following symptoms:_

_-Increased physical and mental activity and energy_  
_-Exaggerated optimism and **self-confidence**_  
_-Excessive irritability, aggressive behavior_  
_- **Decreased need for sleep** without becoming tired_  
_-Grandiose thoughts, extreme sense of self-importance_  
_- **Racing speech, racing thoughts** , **impulsiveness, poor judgment**_  
_-Reckless behavior such as spending sprees, impulsive business decisions, erratic driving and **sexual indiscretions**_  
_-In severe cases, delusions and hallucinations_

Sonja said Even was manic right now. Could manic episodes last longer than a week? Two weeks? Three? Four? Was that even possible? Who was Even when he wasn’t manic? Who was the person Isak had fallen in love with? Was there another Even hidden inside the one Isak knew, like a nesting doll, and this other Even would tell him it had all been a mistake, a joke, the biological waste product of his sick mind? Isak couldn’t bear the thought.

Isak was startled by the ding of his phone. His heart started racing and his stomach clenched even though he knew what to expect. He glanced at the the notification screen and saw that it was a text from Even. Again. He felt so tired.

The barrage of lyrics had started about 20 minutes ago. The first text message he received had been a relief, until he saw what it was:

 _In my dark times I've still got some problems I know_  
_Driving too fast but just moving too slow_  
_And I've got something I've been trying to let go_  
_Pulling me back every time_

 _In my dark times taking it back to the street_  
_Making those promises that I could not keep_  
_In my dark times, baby this is all I could be_  
_Only my mother could love me for me_  
_In my dark times taking it down to the street_  
_Making those promises that I would not keep_  
_In my dark times this is all I could be_  
_Only my mother could of loved me for me_  
_In my dark times, in my dark times_  
_In my dark times_

To Isak it was all a riddle; a keyless code; a cipher made out of alien squiggles; a passage of Shakespeare without the adjacent reference guide. He wanted to understand what was going on in Even’s head and heart, but he was scared of it, scared of getting too close and having his world shattered again and again. He didn’t have room inside himself for more misinterpretation; he couldn’t take any more byproduct heartbreak.

Sonja said stay away from Even. He only made things worse. It was for the best if he ignored him. Best for both of them.

More dings. He willed himself to not look at the screen.

He wanted to call him but he didn’t want to.

He wanted to reach him but he didn’t want to.

He wanted to turn back the clock to yesterday, before his world had flipped on its head, before he'd reverted to the uncertain and scared child he used to be.

Eskild knocked on his door, snapping Isak out of his spiraling thoughts.

“Do you need anything?”

Ding.

“No it’s fine.”

Isak stared at the words in front of him on his laptop screen, all a meaningless jumble.

“It’ll pass, Isak. Even though it doesn’t feel that way right now. Even though it’s very painful. Heartbreak always hurts, and you might not think it will pass, but it will.”

Isak knew Eskiled meant to help. He heard his words with one part of his brain, the part that knew what Eskild was saying was true. But the truth of that future Eskild described was unacceptable, unrecognizable. Trying to imagine his future without Even in it was like trying to imagine never smiling again, never breathing, never brushing his teeth or eating breakfast or going to school or making stupid jokes. Was a future full of heartbreak and uncertainty better than a future where Isak had simply moved on from their love, where it was just gone, insubstantial as smoke? Or worse yet, where it had never actually existed?

Isak was desperately trying to fit all the pieces of his love and his confusion and his heartbreak into the shape of something that made any semblance of sense, but the puzzle pieces kept scattering, morphing, changing from round to square whenever he tried to fit them into place.

“But..let me know if you’d like to talk or if you need anything.”

Ding.

Ding.

He caved and looked at his phone. More lyrics. More puzzles his brain was too exhausted to parse out.

 _The noise in my head, the curse of the talented_  
_Strong communicator, vagabond, I gallivant around the equator_  
_And that would get me off the radar_  
_It’s so intense, I’m on my Lilo and Stitch_  
_Pour my Pino Grigio and Cris with some lime what is this?_  
_An immaculate version of Me and My Bitch by Biggie_  
_With all respect cause you the only one that gets me_  
_And I’m alone, and I realize that when I get home_  
_I wanna go through my red and my cherry_  
_Yes I’m alone, and I realize when I get home_  
_I wanna go through my red and my cherry_  
_Yeah, yeah, let’s pour some cherry wine_  
_Everything’s good, everything’s fine_  
_Yeah, yeah we bring it every time_  
_Yeah, pour a little cherry wine_  
_Yeah, ayo Salaam, yeah, I think they know the time_  
_Everything’s good, everything’s fine_  
_Yeah, pour a little cherry wine, yeah_

 _Life is good, no matter what_  
_Life is good, life is good_

He hated himself for being a coward. For being too scared to confront the swirling dark heart of the storm and instead wanting to hunker down in the basement nuclear fallout shelter, safe from all noise, fear and feeling. But this was the best way. The only way. How could they both survive any other way?

_Hi Even. I don’t understand shit right now. Stop texting me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Screenshot 1 if does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/4jxr4po99s289bh/Screen%20Shot%202016-12-26%20at%2012.59.27%20PM.png?dl=0)
> 
>  
> 
> [Screenshot 2 if does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/e080dtz95fi7z2e/Screen%20Shot%202016-12-26%20at%2011.48.40%20AM.png?dl=0)


	4. ABCs

 

Antidepressants. Alone. Agitation. Anger. Anticipation. Anxiety.  
Blackness. Breakdown. Bouncy. Bright.  
Chaos. Craziness. Confused. Compulsive.  
Depakote. Defective. Delusional. Despair.  
Energized. Electric. Excessive. Euphoric. Elated. Exhilarated.  
Fear. Flying. Floating. Fatigue. Frenzy. Fog.  
Grandiose. Guilt. Geodon. Genetic. Gray.  
Hopelessness. Hazy. High-risk. Hypersexual. Hallucinatory. Heartsick.  
Impulsiveness. Insomnia. Indecisiveness. Instability. Incoherent. Inspired.  
Jitters. Jumpy. Jumpers. Jubilant. Judgment.  
Kindling. Klonopin. Knocked out.  
Lethargy. Lamictal. Lithium. Low.  
Mood-stabilizers. Mad. Morose. Melancholy. Marijuana.  
Nightmares. Nothingness. Numb. Nausea. Nicotine.  
Over-stimulated. Optimistic. Olanzapine. Obsessive.  
Paranoid. Paralyzed. Polypharmacy. Plummet.  
Quick. Quixotic.  
Racing. Raving. Reckless. Recovery. Respiridol. Recurrent. Revved up.  
Strategy. Sleep. Self-hate. Side effects. Straightjacket. Stigma.  
Tears. Tremors. Thorazine. Turned on.  
Unquiet. Unbalanced. Unhinged.  
Valium. Volatile.  
Worthless. Wreck.  
Xanax.  
Yearning.  
Zyprexa. Zoloft. Zig-zag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image link if does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/bccver3p67vwcvb/heartrateabcs.jpg?dl=0)


	5. The Well

_Hi Even. I don’t understand shit right now. Stop texting me._

Even looked at the message. He blinked. He turned off his phone.

He left his room and went out into the kitchen. Morning sunlight poured in through the windows and created a soft halo around all the pristine white kitchen cabinets and countertops. It looked to Even as if he had stepped into a hazy Polaroid photo right before the fully developed image is revealed. He squinted and pulled down the blinds.

He swallowed his pills and ate plain yogurt straight from the carton. It tasted like clumpy papier-mâché paste.

His mom placed her hand on his shoulder asked him how he felt today.

“Not so great.”

She asked him if he’d be up to seeing Dr. Larsen, she’d went ahead and scheduled an appointment for Monday at 3:00 PM.

“Ok.”

He went into the bathroom and stripped off all his clothes. He turned the faucet all the way to the red side. He waited for steam to creep over the mirror’s surface. Once his reflection had morphed from human to ghost he breathed a sigh of relief.

“There you are,” he said.

He got in the shower. It was almost too hot but not hot enough.

He went back into his room. He made his bed.

He put on a pair of sweatpants and an old, soft t-shirt.

He climbed up the ladder to his loft bed. He put the covers over his head.

He fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Even was ripped awake by a violent tremble reverberating through his room. He grabbed onto the sides of his bed to steady himself and thought in his sleep-clogged state that Oslo was simultaneously under siege and experiencing a level-5 earthquake. He felt like he was in an airplane flying through a hailstorm, all rocky jerky turbulence, popping ears and fearful uncertainty. The walls vibrated thunderously and pitched his dresser drawers out of their shelves, whipping his clothes around like autumn leaves; his photos and posters sprang from their hooks and scattered glass shards everywhere like deadly beads from a broken bracelet.

A terrible screeching crack tore through the floor; he looked down and saw his floorboards splintering and splitting open, creating a cavernous hole in the middle of his room. He recognized the hole at once.

The Well.

He should have known this was coming but it was a surprise every time. Sometimes the walls of The Well rose up around him like Rapunzel’s tower. Sometimes The Well was camouflaged and covered over in grass and leaves like a forest animal trap. Sometimes it was an open sewer grate. Sometimes it was a cave and sometimes it was a dungeon and sometimes it was a tunnel. But he always recognized it for what it really was.

The Well’s mouth yawned open further like the flexing maw of a snake readying itself to swallow its prey whole.

His bed started shaking and rocking like a boat about to capsize. Plaster spewed out like confetti with each smack and thump of the bed against the wall. Even felt seasick but he gripped the sides of his bed to shakily make his way to the loft’s ladder. He was sure that at any moment the roof would fall in and crush him and his whole family. He needed to escape. He needed to make sure his parents were safe.

He turned himself around to make his way down the ladder, gripping it so hard his white knuckles practically popped out of his skin.

The screws attaching the ladder to the bed began emitting a pressure-cooker hum and spinning rapidly before flying out of their rivets with a loud whizzing pop. Even hung on as the ladder careened off the bed and was pulled as if by magnetic force toward the edge of The Well. It crashed to a violent stop, wedged between jagged upturned floorboards, and hung precipitously over the hole’s open mouth. This was his big Action Hero Escape moment. He clutched the ladder’s last rung and felt the muscles in his arms quiver; he clamped his jaw, grunted and tried to summon the strength to pull up. Just pull up. Just put one hand in front of the other. But he felt invisible tentacles grasping at his legs, weighing him down. The sweat on his palms made holding on nearly impossible.

Even looked down into the black bottomless shaft below him.

He let go.


	6. Marks

Even's freefall had a certain exhilaration to it: the relief, the release, the weightless wonder and slow-motion feeling of his body accelerating through space without consequence. He felt the air whipping through his hair and he stretched out his body like a sail. But that fleeting feeling of freedom was soon replaced with dread as he watched the light above him recede further and further and faster and faster until it was as tiny as a pinprick, a far away star.

He knew the bottom was approaching and he tried to slow down his descent by dragging his hands and feet along The Well’s stone wall, searching in vain for gaps or crannies to hold onto. But the stones were too slippery and he was going too fast. His fingers were raw and bleeding by the time he crashed into the ground with enough impact that he should have broken every bone in his body. Yet here he was. Alive. Again.

The bottom of The Well is clammy, cold, and musty like a basement that was once badly flooded and never properly stripped of insidious grime, black mold and dry-rot. The darkness is a thick enveloping blanket you can’t shake off. But through his frequent visits to The Well over the years, Even had worked out strategies to help him through his times at the lowest depth. First off, he had a bed (more like a glorified sleeping bag) where he could curl into himself and sleep as long as he needed to. It was so dark in The Well he could barely make out his hand in front of his face, so sleeping offered him a much needed respite: in his dreams he was once again bathed in sunlight and surrounded by vivid Technicolor landscapes. He could smile in his dreams. He could laugh, too. The Well was the nightmare he didn’t want to wake up to, so he slept and slept and slept to remember what that other world was like.

Secondly, Even had taught himself to breathe despite the ever-present feeling like a boulder was pressing down on him and slowly squeezing the air out of his lungs. The air down at the bottom is astronaut’s air: a vacuum. There is simply too little of it and it is too thin and insubstantial to make breathing a simple automatic function of the body. Even had spent hours practicing how to breathe when it seemed like the most impossible task he could face. He counted his breath and the crushing feeling began to lessen. He listened to his breath and the fog of his mind did not dissipate exactly, but it no longer felt like it would envelope him whole.

He had one other thing that made the lack of windows, doors or possible escape route out of The Well slightly more bearable (the only way out was to be rescued or to scale the slippery bricks yourself and The Well unfortunately did not come equipped with state of the art grappling gear and harnesses). He had a waterproof box by his bed where he kept a supply of drawing pencils, pens, charcoals and sketch pads. He also had a small supply of candles and matches, but he knew to use them sparingly. In fact he liked blind drawing in the total darkness. It was freeing; it took him back to creating art like a child does, when the act of mark-making was more important than the final image. The direct line from his soul to the paper wasn’t hindered by the judgmental part of his brain that needed the marks to match up with any representation of reality. The lines and strokes and smudges and scribbles and streaks and dashes and dots and blotches on the paper were simply him. They were the mess of marks inside him. He didn’t need to show anyone the marks he made when he was down in The Well: they were his alone.

If he could have written Isak a letter and sent it up via carrier pigeon he would have. But he knew that was impossible. So he made marks instead: ones that meant _I'm sorry, I was scared_ and _I love you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image link if it does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/bqvoc41x96p3ts5/sorry.jpg?dl=0)


	7. Yes, In Time

Even woke up to a faint far-away murmur of someone calling his name.

“Even? Are you awake?”

The voice sounded muffled and distant, like listening to a compressed and tinny mp3 through an old set of busted headphones. Despite this, he had no doubt to whom the voice belonged.

He looked up and saw through the dimness that dangling far above him was a plastic cup tied to a cotton string, inching down closer and closer. The cup clicked and clattered against the stone wall of The Well as it made its slow journey. The sight of the cup was comforting but at the same time reminded him why sleeping was a much better idea than waking.

It hurt him to know that the distance between him and Sonja’s familiar and steady voice felt like hundreds and hundreds of meters.

When the cup was finally within reach he grabbed it and flicked the inside rim three times, which had always been their signal that yes, he was there, he heard her, even if he didn’t feel up to speaking right now. He put the cup to his ear.

“Hi,” she said. “How are you feeling today?”

Even shrugged but realized too late that this movement would not travel across the cotton string connecting their voices. He said nothing.

“It’s ok,” she went on. “You know you don’t have to talk right now, I just wanted to see how you were doing. Your mom said you are supposed to see Dr. Larsen tomorrow? I wanted to let you know I can go in with you if you want. Just in case you need someone with you.”

Even thought about the time it would take for his thoughts to form into words that would then leave his lips in the form of sound waves that would vibrate across the long length of the cotton string that connected their two red cups ear to ear.

Even tried to do the calculation in his head. If she was 1900 meters above him and sound travels at the speed of 340 m/s, how long would it take for his words to reach her ears from the moment they left his lips? But he had no way of knowing if 1900 meters was accurate? How could you measure a distance that felt like a wormhole? Like a strand of time folding in on itself? Like a snake eating its tail?

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. He imagined his words as a pattern of tiny particles carried across the long length of cotton rope: each “I’m sorry” particle vibrating and pushing off the next, creating the pattern of disturbance we call a wave.

sorry  
imsorry  
imsorryimsorry  
 imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry   
imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry  
imsorryimsorryimsorrimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry  
 imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry  
 imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry   
imsorryimsorry  
imsorry  
sorry

 _I’m the pattern. I’m the disturbance_ , he thought but did not say.

He knew he alone could carry his own sadness. His own sickness. If he tried to share it, it would only spill over them in every direction until they would drown in his apologies like seawater.

He waited for the echo of his words to stop ricocheting off the walls. “I didn’t mean to drag you into any of that the other night with Isak and the police,” he said. “Thank you for coming to the station and for bringing my things. For helping to carry the weight for so long. But I don’t want you to take care of me anymore. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry I’ve put you through this.”

Silence.

A minute passed. Then another. Then another.

He thought of all the times Sonja had been there for him, had stayed with him through his lowest lows and worst mistakes. Their fights. Her worry. Their reconciliations. Her rules. Her steadfastness. Her sensibleness. His resentment. Her lips. Their tears. The comfort of her hands and body pressed into his during those long dark days and nights. His desire for her. His desire for more. It all felt so close and far away at the same time. This conversation had all happened so many times before that their love and hate and need were wrapped around the same long strand; their words traveling up and down the same worn and frayed piece of string.

Even flicked three times on the rim of his cup. Sonja flicked three times back.

She said, “You know you don’t have to be sorry. None of this is your fault. And it’s neither of our faults that we’ve grown apart. I love you, Even. You know that, right? I’ll love you even if we’re not together, even though that is painful for me to think about right now. But I want to be here for you if I can. Please don’t be sorry. We’re beyond apologies.”

A minute passed. Then another. Then another.

“Can I ask you something?” she said at last. “Do you love him?”

Even nodded without thinking then realized that this movement would not travel across the cotton string connecting their voices.

“I don’t know yet. But I think the answer could be yes, in time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image link if it does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/umkwdk7aylryu9a/evendepression2.jpg?dl=0)


	8. Self-portraits

My name is Even Bech Næsheim.

In English, the word “even” means:

 _adjective_  
1\. flat and smooth  
2. equal in number, amount, or value

 _adverb_  
1\. used to emphasize something surprising or extreme

In Norwegian, the name Even is a variant on Øyvind, which is derived from the Old Norse name Eyvindr. _Øy/Ey_  meaning either "island" or "lucky/happy" and _vind_ / _vindr_  meaning either "wind" or "victor/warrior". So I am a happy warrior on an island of wind. Or maybe I am a lucky breeze. Or maybe I am a lone victor, stranded on an island, and my luck has all run out.

Maybe it means all of these things.

Maybe it means none of these things.

Maybe the answer depends on which corner of the world you are standing on when you ask the question: _what’s in a name?_

Maybe it depends on the way the wind is blowing that day when you ask the questions:  
_Who am I?_  
_What makes me me?_  
_If life is like a movie, who's the director? Me, God or the double strands of my DNA?_

Maybe it depends on which search terms you put into google or look up in the DSM-5. 

Maybe it depends on if you ask the questions aloud, in your head, in a text, in a hand-written letter or an SOS bottle flung out into the unforgiving and unknowable sea.

Maybe the answers depend on if you’ve taken your meds that day or not.

Maybe the answers depend on if you are too afraid to ask the right questions at all.

* * *

I was born on February 12, 1997 (Aquarius, Year of the Ox). I am Norwegian. My skin is white, my hair is dirty blond, my eyes are blue, my legs are (very) long. I have a few pearlescent scars on my skin. I have a nice laugh (so I’ve been told). I have lungs that have inhaled too much cigarette smoke. I have a brain that is unbalanced.

I am a son, a cousin, a friend, a lover, a citizen, a student, an aspiring artist and filmmaker.

I listen to hard hip-hop and bubble gum dance pop. I read comics and the Quran. I watch slasher flicks and award-winning foreign cinema. I kiss girls and boys.

I am both flat and smooth; extreme and surprising. 

I am not bipolar.

Let me rephrase.

Yes, I am living with Bipolar Disorder Type 1. But I don’t like to say “I am bipolar” in the same way you would not say “I am the bubonic plague” (unless you are pretty hardcore into metaphors, death metal and/or Satanic rituals) or “I am a Chlamydia infection” or “I am anxiety” or “I am Stage 2 hypertension” or “I am alien hand syndrome” (which is a real thing, google it).

I was diagnosed at age 16. I have experienced hypomania, mania, psychosis, depression and all the shades of gray in between. I have self-medicated, prescription-medicated, and rejected my medications. I see a therapist regularly. I have a list of triggers and warning signs. I have a list of “the top 10 ways to know I am doing well”. I have a list of wellness goals and strategies. I have a crisis plan. I have emergency contacts. I want to live successfully with my disorder. I want to live, period.

The problem is that it’s easier said than done.

I hold many selves deep inside myself.

I withhold many selves as well: from strangers and acquaintances and teachers and coworkers and friends and family and the ones I love most.

I am whole in my holes. I am complete in my contradictions. I am intact in my fractured identities.

* * *

There are times when I can feel every molecule inside me singing. These are the days I feel alien and immortal like I did before I went into the hospital. I can feel electric currents, like light switches, turning off and on in my brain. On and off. Light and Dark. On and off. Allah and Man. On and off. Heaven and Hell. On and off. Miracles and Science. I’ll go for a walk and feel like everything, every microscopic particle in the world, is part of me. I eat the world. I absorb its burdens and am lighter for it. I cascade apart, my body has no physical bounds, and pieces of me go everywhere, into everything. I am nothing. I am pieces. I am air. This is how you walk on water: when there is nothing telling you that you can’t. Nothing is impossible. My body does not obey the laws of gravity because I have no body. My body is a vibration. This feels so good, like my whole body is vibrating in a long drawn out quake. A tidal wave of wonder. An ecstasy of flooded senses. All is one. All is love. I am one. I am love. I want to touch everything and feel it all slip through my fingers.

I am boundless.

I am in partnership with God.

I am a prophet.

And I don’t quite know what to do with the enormity of these feelings.

I miss them when they're gone.

* * *

Sometimes, life is exhilarating.

I am: smart, sexy, brilliant, successful, trail-blazing, fascinating, wild, a force of nature, out of control, out of my mind, crazy in love.

I am a genius. I am Munch, Beethoven, VanGogh, Hemingway, Virginia Wolfe, Nina Simone, Jackson Pollock, Amy Winehouse.

Isn't crazy a compliment?

I don’t need to sleep. Sleeping is a waste of time. I don't need to eat. There is too much I need to do.

I need to draw and read and write and make and create and run and dance and laugh and drink and smoke and kiss and scream at the top of my lungs. I need to hop on a bike or a train or a bus and go anywhere. Go fast. Go now. I need to rearrange my bedroom furniture. I need to write my manifesto. I need to learn Quantum Physics.

I need to map the stars inside me before they all burn out.

I need to lie down on train tracks and play a cosmic game of chicken.

I need to fuck like the world is ending.

My thoughts are a tangled ball of string. The string is in my mouth. I pull and pull.

* * *

There are times I am unable to be my own safe harbor.

There are times when I accidentally let myself believe that the world is better off without me. That I am a burden. That I will never be free.

There are times when a black cloud descends upon me. Sometimes I don’t know why or what the trigger is, despite my lists and strategies. Sometimes it’s just me and the black cloud and I give into it, I try to find a kind of peace in the darkness. But sometimes I can't. Sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes it’s really, really bad.

My brain latches and loops and claws at the thought: is any of this worth it?

Each day: play sane, act normal. Each day, maintain. Each day, ignore and deny the pain. Get out of bed, go to school, take my meds, eat, sleep, repeat. It all seems so pointless and the relief would be so profound.

I chew and chew and chew on these thoughts until the insides of my cheeks are raw and bloody.

I don’t want to go back to the hospital. I don’t want to keep feeling like this. I see my life spread out in front of me: I am a failure. My life is a string of letting everyone down: lost jobs, lost friends, lost opportunities, lost faith, lost love. Lies upon lies. Facades upon facades. I'll never be able to take care of myself or anyone else.

Would my parents and Sonja forgive me? Would they understand one day?

I could never put them through that.

Could I?

I have to live. I know I have to live.

I am alone.

I am so tired.

I don’t want to die but I don’t know how to keep living like this.

I am so exhausted.

I want sleep.

I want my soul to rise and meet the stars.

I can’t move.

I am trapped inside my body.

I am trapped inside my mind.

I can’t calm down because this is all in my brain.

It's ALL IN MY BRAIN.

My brain is a trap.

I am hallucinating.

I am muttering to myself.

I write a good-bye letter.

This is what insane people look like in TV, books, and movies.

This is what I look like.

* * *

There are days I know how to play pretend. Until I don’t.

There are days I know how to function. Until I don’t.

There are day I know how to hold it all inside me. Until I don’t.

* * *

So I keep a list of victories:

Today I got out of bed.

Today I took a shower.

Today I ate two meals.

Today I took my meds.

Today I talked to my therapist.

Today I took a walk.

Today I felt the sun warm my skin.

Today I was even (definition: flat, smooth) and that was enough.

It has to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image link if it does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/hyrzv2itj5qsprg/evenselfportraits.jpg?dl=0)


	9. Three Poems for Isak

**Insomnia Sonnet**

Your skin is softer in the pre-dawn. Warmer,  
too, than glacial nights that crawl and stretch  
through bleak-black hours, the yawning dark.  
You murmur in your sleep sometimes. Awake,  
I watch your slackened mouth; you shudder, turn,  
and (drooling adorably) mutter soft indiscernible words.  
I listen, greedy, and hope to hear my name.  
I twirl the feather-soft wisps of your curls, nip-kiss  
your nose and when you stir, feign sleep. Forgive me.  
Forgive this restless bird, this heart that quakes  
in thunder-thumping fear. I ache to stay  
and weave into the fabric of your dreams.  
   Dawn breaks. You'll wake. And I'll have flown.   
   Forgive me. It's the only way I know.   
 

 

* * *

**  
Hotel Suite**

We learn to move from the hips,   
a slow ocean corroding skin.  
We dissolve into particles.

You let me brush off the dust,  
the dead cells, the rust  
and suck the ash from your eyelashes.

I grind you down, carve your bones,  
curved inward and bowed  
like an ancient hourglass.  
How long can this last?

I slip out and it's midnight,  
I slip out and my sixty seconds of sand  
are still spilling, grain by grain,  
inching and filling our hotel room.

 _Don't be scared._  
_I'm right here._  
  
You're here and I have no fear  
of breaking away, breaking down.  
  
You're the reason I learned to breathe underwater.  
  
You're the reason I wade my way out of sand.

 

* * *

 

**Days go as unnoticed**

Days go as unnoticed as our lungs breathing in  
and nights spend themselves away  
until tomorrow can’t begin.  
I saw every star when I looked toward the ground  
and looked up, and touched the round  
crescent of his ear, and tucked his hair behind it.  
Could he hear the crickets?  
They sounded like his taste,  
vibrating inside my lips. The soft of his neck  
was my favorite place. It tasted like soap and smelled like skin.

We begin with a breath and we hope that the end  
will be just as easy. It never is.  
We forget that each kiss makes the distance  
between us so much shorter, the need for more  
the hardest habit to break.  
We forget that we grow greedy.

Some things I won’t remember: the spot under his knees,  
his cuticles, the arch of his feet. The eyes rolling,  
forced smiles, exasperation, stiff cotton, crying  
in bed for no reason. Instead, I’ll remember what can’t be  
forgotten; remember  
breathing his breath, being happy.


	10. This This This

Isak didn’t leave his room for the rest of the day on Saturday. At one point in the afternoon he fell asleep while watching a documentary on youtube about Bipolar Disorder. It was in English and his brain was too drained to keep up without subtitles. When he woke up, his heart was racing; he was thirsty and felt like he was maybe running a low-grade fever. His room was dark and he was confused and disoriented. What day was it? What time? How long had be been out for? His clock said 6:17pm. That meant that only 24 hours ago he'd been ordering mini-burgers and champagne and snapping selfies with Even in their swanky hotel suite. It didn’t seem possible. He had been so stupidly happy. He wished it had never happened. He wished there was such a thing as a cosmic Take-Back. Would he be willing to trade away the pain of the rest of the night, even it meant never experiencing the joy and thrill that came before?

He checked his phone. No texts from Even. He hadn’t expected there to be. He had told Even to stop texting him, so why was he surprised or disappointed when he had done just what he’d asked? He had no right to be disappointed. It was over. He rubbed his chest and tried in vain to sooth the sharp insistent ache that had taken up permanent residence somewhere between his sternum, rib cage and lungs. He told himself to get used to it. This was the new normal.

He thought maybe the gnawing feeling inside him was because he had slept through lunch but the mere idea of eating made him queasy. Besides, he couldn’t go into the kitchen even if he were hungry. Couldn’t bear to be reminded of the lazy weekend morning they’d spent there. Even wearing one of Isak’s old white sleep tshirts and sweats for pajamas like it was already so natural for them to share their clothes and lives in this casually intimate way. Even's hair still wet from the shower, one errant hair curl in the front practically begging to be brushed back into place by Isak's ready fingers. Even giddy and cooking them too much breakfast, dancing to that stupid pop song. Isak wanting him more than he knew how to express except with his lips and the arch of his hips that practically begged _this this this_. Isak should have known that morning something was up. He was so oblivious. He saw only what he wanted to see. He was a fool.

Isak wanted to sleep again, but his pillow suddenly smelled too much like Even, though all that week they had both used Isak’s shampoo.

He took a shower and forced himself not think about them there together, soaping up and washing each other in a way that was both comforting and incredibly sexy. Isak running his fingers through Even’s satiny slick hair. On his knees with Even in his mouth. Hot soothing water from the shower-head pouring into his open mouth and down his throat as they kissed. Everything sleek and slippery and perfect, even the awkward maneuvering around the tight space. Even toweling Isak dry, the towel both soft and rough on Isak’s clean raw skin.

Isak turned off his brain and turned up the water practically to scalding to keep himself from crying.

When he got out of the shower he saw that he had missed a barrage of texts on his notification screen. He got a rush of adrenaline followed by the same sickening drop in his stomach. The texts were just from Jonas, Magnus and Mahdi group chatting about any party plans for the night and sending stupid memes. Isak thought for a second that he might feel a little better if he got totally black-out drunk with them. But in order to do that he’d have to talk to his friends; he’d have to tell them what happened and he just couldn’t do it yet.

He had some weed that might knock him back for a few hours but that too was a painful reminder of Even. Even shouldn’t have been smoking all this time because—as Sonja so angrily had pointed out—it exacerbated his mania. Isak felt guilty, like an accessory to a crime, but one he hadn’t even known he’d committed.

He just wanted everything to go dark and numb for a while. He wanted his brain to turn off. No static, no stimulus, no noise, no memories. He wished he could go into one of those sensory deprivation chambers, but one from a Sci-Fi movie that cryogenically freezes you so he could just sleep and sleep and wake up healed and whole and unhurt and unbroken.

He remembered then that Linn had a pharmacy-level supply of meds. He didn’t really want to talk to her (or anyone) but he knocked on her door and asked her if he could borrow some of her sleeping pills. Well, not borrow, because he couldn’t replace them. But if he could have one or two, he could pay her maybe? Isak looked at the floor the whole time he asked her.

Linn’s first instinct was to say no. But finally she agreed, albeit reluctantly, only because she recognized desperation when she saw it. Heartbreak was written all over his bloodshot eyes, the hollow flatness in his voice, the smudgy red blotches on his normally smooth skin, the sad state of his crumpled sweatpants and very lived-in hoodie. He looked much younger than seventeen.

She wanted to say something. Not to cheer him up, God forbid, because she knew that would never work and was totally pointless to even try. But to let him know that at least she got it. But she was not his therapist. She didn’t know if their roommate status even qualified them as friends. She handed him an Ambien and went back to bed.

Isak swallowed the pill (10 mg was normal, he googled it to be sure). He pulled the blankets over his head and waited for sleep to overtake him. It took longer than he thought it would. His brain and body were warring factions: his brain wanted oblivion, but his body still wanted Even. He felt the wanting everywhere. In his hands, that wanted to touch and rub every inch of Even's skin; in his legs that wanted to run as fast as possible to Even’s house; in his throat that wanted to say how sorry he felt; in his arms that wanted to wrap around Even's shoulders and offer him safety, warmth and comfort; in his lips that wanted to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him and keep kissing him.

His heart was a ravaged warzone, his hope a stranded refugee trying to make his way home. 

He slept for 12 hours.

He dreamed of water.

When he awoke, for a few happy seconds he forgot the events of Friday night had happened at all and he thought Even was maybe sleeping right next to him like he’d been in the habit of doing all this past week. But then everything came rushing back to him in a sickening wave of guilt, shame and near-nausea.

He opened his side drawer and took out a little notebook where he had tucked away all the drawings Even had given him. He touched their crinkled paper, the soft torn edges. He read the captions even though he had them all memorized. He thought he might cry again but he didn’t.

Instead he thought about parallel universes. He imagined a universe where Even wasn’t crazy and their night at the hotel had continued with them taking a shower together, falling asleep in each other’s arms, waking up and sucking each other off before getting room service for breakfast and going home. That other Even would be naked next to him right now in his bed, close enough for Isak to trace his fingers over his back and play connect-the-dots with all his moles. In that universe Isak had no doubt that Even loved him just as much as he still (yes, still) loved him. In that universe Isak wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed or confused. In that universe his mom wasn’t insane anymore and his parents were back together, happily married. In that universe, Isak was bringing Even to meet his parents at the Christmas concert this upcoming Friday and they were going to love Even and be proud of their son. Old wounds would heal; Isak would forgive his dad for walking out and forgive his mom for her broken brain. Maybe in that universe he and Even would both graduate and then move in together. Maybe in that universe Even was his forever. Why not? If Isak was going to wish for the impossible it served him right to make it hurt.


	11. A Side Story: Even Remembers Erik Hagen

I’m 15. My family is driving home from a weekend at our cabin in Oppland when my dad gets a call on his cell phone. I’d been looking out my window, not really paying attention, staring at the dotted lines that divide the highway lanes. How if you look at each line directly it’s like slow motion, and you can see each segment slink by as you pass it and move on. But if you shift your eyes slightly, soften the focus and look forward or behind you, all the segments blend into one unbroken white line.

I’d been feeling recently more and more like a bunch of broken lines. Something inside me was not connecting and it was starting to scare me. I wasn’t talking about it though, just hoping my anxiety and dread would go away and smooth itself out on its own if I moved and talked fast enough and didn’t think about it too much; if I tricked my eyes into thinking all my lines were smooth and united.

My dad says, “Erik Hagen committed suicide. He jumped off the Askøy Bridge _.”_

I look up from the lanes, the solid line shattered, unsure of what just happened.

 _What?_  

My dad repeats it, the shock caught in his throat. My mom takes the phone from him. While she continues talking, I realize I am unable to move or speak. Not even an _Oh my God_. No tears that I know should be welling up and pouring out of me. I am a statue. This is normal, right? I’m just shocked, in disbelief. I stare out my window as the trees speed by in a dark blur, the moon streaming through gray clouds, chasing us down the highway.

 

* * *

 

Erik was the stepfather of twins Sigurd and Daniel, old primary school friends of mine. Because he was not their biological dad they also called him Erik, which I was always a little jealous of. My dad would never be cool with me calling him by his first name. Erik was a photographer for the local paper, mostly covering sports stuff. He also took pictures at our pee-wee soccer and hockey matches, our school concerts and plays, and all the neighborhood birthday parties and get-togethers. We still have a few of his black and white photos up around our house: me, age seven, in my goalie outfit and gloves, my chubby face determined and expectant, my arms outstretched; me peaking out behind a backstage curtain, surrounded by a cluster of angel wings, nervously awaiting the first cue for the annual Christmas pageant. He captured and transformed us, even though we were just kids doing dumb kid things. He made us look important.

He still shot film, he was old school like that. He had a darkroom in their basement that was strictly off-limits to us boys in case we accidentally drank the chemicals or exposed his film and paper on accident. But one time we did sneak down there and I still remember the pungent chemical smell that bounced all around the inside of my nostrils and the otherworldly way the red safety lights transformed my friends and I into demons.                          

When I was eight, the twins and I got to hold flags and march in our school's Constitution Day Parade. After the parade my mom asked if Erik could take a quick solo portrait of me in my costume. I was high-strung and fidgety; I wanted to get out of my suffocating button-up shirt, vest and tight dress shoes NOW. My mom was running out of patience, I’m sure I was being a huge pain in the ass. I refused to smile and averted my eyes from the camera. Erik touched my chin, gently tilting my face up into the light. He made a Donald Duck noise with his mouth and I laughed, feeling suddenly at ease, and I forgot all about the camera.

Erik drove a motorcycle. He had tan skin, curly blond hair (slightly thinning but he pulled it off) and a movie star chin with a big cleft and a sharply defined jawline. He had black eyes that were always shiny and a little mischievous. Or mysterious. Like, he was the type of dad who knew how to pull a coin out of your ear and not have it be dorky. Even though he was a father himself, his motorcycle put him in an altogether different category from my (much more lame) dad. I remember thinking I wanted to be like him when I grew up. I felt differently about him than all the other dads I knew in a way I couldn’t explain.

He gave me a ride on his motorcycle once, when I was 13, in grade 7. I was walking home from an afterschool piano lesson. He saw me and stopped, offered to give me a ride home. I hesitated. I had never been on a motorcycle before, and though Erik was not a stranger, it still seemed dangerous, and _bad_. But I didn’t want to say no, so I got on. He gave me his helmet, and told me to wrap my knees around his waist, and to hold on tight to his shoulders. My thighs squeezed around his hips, and I could feel his muscles through his worn gray t-shirt. My pulse jumped as we set off; slowly, because we were in a residential area, but thrilling all the same. I had never been this close to a man before, besides a hug from my father or uncles. But this was different. He smelled different.

It turns out he also suffered from clinical depression.

 

* * *

 

When my family gets home, it is past midnight. My brain is numb, but I can’t stand still. I need to move, to run. I tell my parents I’m going for a walk. I set out, not sure where I’m going, pounding through the quiet residential streets.

Without realizing it, I find myself standing in front of the Hagens’ house. His motorcycle, usually parked in front, is missing. I wonder if he used it to drive off the bridge, like an Evel Knievel stunt gone terribly wrong. Or did he drive to the bridge, park, leave the keys in the ignition, and then jump? Would the police tow it? Would Mrs. Hagen sell it or give it to Daniel and Sigurd so they'd have something to remember their stepdad by? What was he thinking when his body hit the water? Was there a lot of pain? Did he die from the impact trauma, from drowning, or from hypothermia? _Why did he do it? Why did he have to do it?_ He had Sigurd and Daniel and their mom. Sigurd had told me his parents fought a lot, but that’s just what adults do; a lot of adults are fucked up and they don’t go and off themselves just because they can. It doesn’t mean you actually get to go through with it. Even if you really wanted to and knew exactly how you were going to do it, it’s not something you actually get to do. It shouldn’t be allowed. It shouldn’t be so easy to be here one day and gone the next.

I admit something to myself right then, which I don’t tell anyone except my therapist years later. I am jealous of him. Jealous, then guilty for feeling jealous, then ashamed because I can’t even cry about my good friends’ dead stepdad, and then scared because I must actually really be fucked up if I can’t cry about something so monumental as this. Why aren’t I crying? What is wrong with me?

A light flicks on in an upstairs window. Daniel’s window. I run away.

I end up in Vår Frelsers gravlund, one of my favorite spots in Oslo to be alone and quiet and to think. It’s a warm August night, and by the time I get there, I am hot, and exhausted, and my head is reeling. I sit down in the grass and look up at the blue-black sky, at the gray clouds soaring past. They are moving so fast but it’s all a lie, another eye and mind trick like the long unbroken highway line. Because Earth, and all of us gravity-bound humans on it, is what is actually moving. We are the ones spinning and we’ll never know it.


	12. Roommate Bonding Outing to Bislet Bad - Part 1

When Isak woke up on Monday, his body felt like the dead weight of an underwater anchor stuck in sand and he knew he wasn’t ready to face school yet. He had actually completed all of his homework assignments on Sunday in a futile attempt to keep his mind off of Even, but when he opened his eyes on Monday morning and reality once again came crashing down on him he knew getting out of bed was not in the cards. He messaged Sana asking her to turn in an essay for him and tried to fall back to sleep.

He ended up spending the next hour staring at the ceiling, replaying in Sherlock Holmes-like microscopic detail all the interactions he’d had with Even that should have clued him in that there was something going on under the surface. Something more than what Isak had just assumed was Even’s “back and forth” personality. If he’d only caught onto the hints, the subtext. If he’d asked the right questions when Even said he was tired of Sonja controlling him. If he hadn’t given Even his phone right away when Sonja called to warn him and he’d actually got a chance to talk to her before they went to the hotel. If he’d taken Even’s insomnia more seriously. Hell, if Isak had decided to take Psychology instead of Biology this semester everything could have turned out differently.

He was deep down into the perpetually self-flagellating rabbit hole of _What-Ifs_ and _What-I-Should-Have-Done-Differentlys_ when Eskild knocked on his door.

“Knock knock,” Eskild said, peeking his head in. “How are you feeling today?”

Isak gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Can I come in?”

Eskild sat down on the corner of Isak’s bed. He took in the dirty dishes piled up on the side dresser and the fact that Isak was wearing the same hoodie and sweatpants from Saturday morning. And also importantly, that he was ditching school.

Isak still hadn’t told him the full story of what happened Friday night. Eskild had raced home from the bar he was at with his friends once he received Isak’s SOS text message at 1:15 AM. When he got home Isak was in his room, with all the lights off, crying. He was too distraught to say much except that things were over between him and Even.

Eskild didn’t want to push him, but he was worried. He knew Isak was not the type to volunteer the inner workings of his surly-on-the-outside but sensitive-on-the-inside teenage heart. Not until he was ready at least. But it was worth a try.

Eskild said, “So…tonight Noora and I are thinking we should all do an official roommate bonding outing to Bislet Bad. We’re doing their aqua yoga class now, do you want to come?”

Isak scoffed and raised a skeptical eyebrow, which was exactly what Eskild thought he would do. “Aqua yoga?”

“Yep.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“I’m not. We went last Monday and it has literally changed my life.”

“Aqua yoga? That’s actually a thing? I thought you made it up as an excuse to leave when Even was…you know when…umm. You know, last weekend.”

Eskild saw that just saying Even’s name still struck a raw nerve for Isak so he barreled on.

“Well, yes, it may have started out as an innocent ruse for us to get out of the kitchen with social grace. But I have this friend that’s really into it and I kept seeing him post about it, saying how the instructor is really hot and it makes you feel like an enlightened water ballerina. So we went and it turns out to be the best class ever.”

“Um…thanks for the offer. But, pass?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not an idiot. I didn’t _actually_ think you’d go to a yoga class. But maybe you still want to go to the pool with us and swim laps or go to the jacuzzi or sauna? I thought maybe you’d want to get out for a bit. Linn is going too. Not to yoga, of course, but just to relax in the sauna and sweat out her toxins and practice self-care Gwyneth Paltrow Goop-style. Whaddya say?”

“Um…I’ll think about it.”

“But seriously, it’ll be good for you to leave the house and you know, get your mind off things. The sauna is great. Sweating is actually really good for you, especially if you’ve been feeling, like, under the weather.”

“Um. Ok. Maybe. I don’t know, we’ll see how I’m feeling later.”

“Ok, great. The class is at 7:00, so we’ll leave around 5:00 to catch the bus and have some time to relax or swim before the class starts. Maybe we can have dinner together after, too.”

“Ok we’ll see.”

“Do you need anything? Fanta for breakfast?”

That got a little grin from Isak, which Eskild counted as a minor victory.

“No thanks, I’m ok.”

“Ok.”

Eskild got up to leave. He was halfway out the door when Isak said, “Um, Eskild?”

“Yes?”

“Um. Have you ever been with someone before, and then found out something that made you realize that everything you thought you knew about them was sort of like a lie? Well. Not a lie exactly. But…made you rethink everything.”

“This is about Even?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Never mind, actually. It’s ok. I’m ok. Thanks.”

Isak didn’t know why it was so hard to talk about Even’s mental illness. Because he was embarrassed, maybe? Embarrassed that the only reason Even had liked him was because he was sick and manic the whole time. Embarrassed that he’d fallen so hard and so fast for someone it turns out he barely knew anything about. Yes, he knew all of Even’s favorite musicians, movie directors, visual artists, song lyrics, school subjects, FIFA players, preferred method of making scrambled eggs, and even the types of spices he liked on cheesy toast. And yes, he also knew how Even liked to be touched and kissed and all the other things Isak could do with his mouth that made Even go crazy. Could Isak still say that— _go crazy_ —when Even already was crazy? Was there another more PC term Isak should be using? And besides, all those little things Isak knew didn’t count, did they? Not if he hadn’t known something as important as Even being bipolar.

Eskild was still hovering in the doorway but he saw from the distant way Isak was now staring off into space that this was all he was going to get out of him for now.

He said, “Well, let me know if you want to talk. I’ll come and get you when we’re ready to leave for the pool. Bring your suit, towel, flip-flops and goggles if you have them.”

* * *

 

Isak had fully intended to skip out on the roommate bonding activity but by the time 5:00pm rolled around he was feeling more than a little stir-crazy and thought _Fuck it_. Eskild was probably right, it would be good for him to leave the apartment and get some exercise. Anything to get his mind out of its obsessive rut: Even, sadness, Even, regret, Even, anger, Even, guilt, Even, shame, Even, heartbreak, Even, worry, Even, confusion, Even, self-doubt, Even, sadness. Repeat repeat repeat.

So the four roommates left together to catch the bus to Bislet Bad.

Isak thought Noora and Eskild were being a little suspiciously upbeat and chatty, probably on purpose because Linn and Isak were both on the opposite end of the talkative spectrum. As in, neither of them opened their mouths practically the entire ride over. Isak was not in the mood to participate but he didn’t actually mind the background noise of their familiar teasing chitchat, which at the moment was about how funny it was that the concept of _hygge_ had caught on as a trendy mainstream term abroad even though no one outside of Scandinavia seemed to actually know how to pronounce it correctly.

“They make it sound like someone just punched you in the stomach like - _hee-yug_ \- which is about as opposite from cozy as you can get,” Noora said.

Eskild said, “I bet soon there’ll be this whole category of _hygge_ porn, where the guys wear fuzzy hand-knit wool socks on their dicks and instead of fucking they just make tea and smear porridge all over each other by the fireside.”

“Oh my God, Eskild, please stop.” Noora put her hands over her ears, even though she was smiling.

“I’ve also heard it pronounced like _huuuuge_ , you know like Donald Trump. Blech.” Eskild made an exaggerated retching noise. “Also, _hoog-ah_ , which is a little better but still. Which reminds me, I’m dying to go to a hookah lounge.”

Noora said, “Why? You don’t even smoke. I’ve never seen the appeal of a hookah, it’s like you are inhaling a Starburst candy or something.”

“Hello, that’s exactly the point.”

“And unless the bar is actually owned and operated by someone from an Arab country isn’t that as bad a matter of cultural appropriation as your _hygge_ porn would be?”

“Great, my favorite topic: cultural appropriation. Here we go…”

The two continued their banter until they arrived at the historic bathhouse. They paid their registration fee and the girls and boys separated to go into the locker rooms to change into their swimsuits.

Locker rooms still were a place of unease for Isak. Over the years he had trained himself to make absolutely no eye contact with anyone in a locker room, ever. Don’t stare, don’t get caught staring. Some dudes just walked around locker rooms naked, totally at ease, showing off even. Isak had spent years making sure no one noticed him in a place like this, where he was at his most vulnerable. Even though Eskild was like a brother to him Isak still turned his back to him and sort of hid behind his open locker door while he changed into his swim trunks to make sure neither of them accidentally saw anything.

They stepped out into the main swimming pool area. The smell of chlorine struck Isak immediately and he was overcome by a visceral sense memory of the last time he’d been in a pool, less than two short months ago. The night he pushed Even into a pool he had been led to believe belonged to Even's aunt but turned out to belong to a near-stranger. The night Isak got a drop of water stuck in his lungs. The night Even kissed him for the first time in that otherworld of wavering blue light. The night everything Isak had secretly wished for fell perfectly into place. One of the happiest nights of Isak’s life.

He realized then how stupid it was to come here tonight. There was no way he could get into the water. His chest was caving in on itself and his jaw was clenching to keep his chin from crumpling and he needed to go home immediately.

“Are you ok?” Eskild asked and put a hand on Isak’s shoulder.

The simple gesture steadied Isak and he tilted his chin up as if to reverse the flow of the tears that had suddenly started to well up in the corners of his eyes. As if to command them: _Go home. Go back where you came from. I don’t want you._ He looked up at the high ceilings that domed into skylight windows above him. He took a few breaths and set his face into a stoic barrier.

“Sorry, yeah, I’m ok.”

“Want to do some laps or something?” Eskild asked.

“Yeah, ok.”

Isak lowered himself into the water and plunged his head under. The echo-y din of the crowded room was suddenly hushed by the water’s wall of humming quiet.

_But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God._

The bible passage floated up to the surface of his brain, unbidden. He hadn’t even realized he had that passage memorized, but there it was.

 _Where did that come from?_ he thought to himself.

But of course, he knew. And for the first time in about a year, the thought of his mom did not fill him with panic or dread or pain. Instead, it filled him with a little warmth. A little hope.

_For my son Isak: I have loved you from the first second I saw you the 21st of June 1999 at 21:21 pm, and I always will, forever._

He pushed off against the wall with all of his strength and began doing the breaststroke vigorously. The pool at Bislet was not a long one and it was satisfying to count lap after lap. One lap. Then two. Then three. Then four. Then five. He lost track after awhile. He preferred the breaststroke because he could keep his head underwater longer than the crawl stroke and he enjoyed the quiet beneath the surface. He liked the feeling of slicing through the water with his arms and the whipping motion of the frog kick. He liked working against the resistance of the water, it was like pulling and pushing against himself. He liked how the pounding of his accelerated heartbeat thrummed in his ears. He liked how each breath meant something; each breath was earned. His blood pumped noisily through every inch of his body but he felt calm and steady.

He didn’t think about anything for awhile but the rhythmic pattern of the next push, the next stroke, the next breath. But eventually he found himself playing little word games to match the motion of his body to the rhymes and rhythms of his mind. Isak’s friends knew that he liked to rap, though he wasn’t a very good performer and he mostly just did it for the fun of coming up with insult rhymes to throw at Magnus. What his friends didn’t know was that he actually liked to write poetry, too, but he only ever referred to it as “spoken word”, even in his own mind. Because the only thing gayer than actually liking and reading poetry was writing it. His mind churned and turned and soon he had written a little poem about the night of the Kosegruppa pregame he hosted. The night he realized he and Even could never be just casual acquaintances.

 _ **E** ach time your eyes flick over to mine, the blood_  
_**V** essels connecting my wants to my fears pulse like_  
_**E** lectric strobe lights of hope reverberating_  
_**N** ow now now now now._

 _ **I** tell myself not to look but I keep looking._  
_**S** omething in the half curve-curl of your lips sets my_  
_**A** drenaline pulsing like a light beacon and I wonder if_  
_**K** issing you could answer the question my gaze keeps asking._

A sharp whistle interrupted his thoughts and he got called out of the water by an employee so they could use the pool for aqua yoga class.

He forgot his poem almost immediately.


	13. Roommate Bonding Outing to Bislet Bad - Part 2

Isak left the pool as the class-goers took to the water; he rinsed off in a quick cold shower before heading upstairs to the sauna and jacuzzi rooms. He entered the sauna, happily surprised to find it empty, and sat down on the wood-slatted benches. He poured a little water on the heated rock pile and was greeted by a pleasurable hiss of steam. The heat was thick but not overbearing. He shut his eyes and breathed, letting his body and brain do nothing for a while except adjust to the closeness of the heat.

He breathed in the room’s woodsy burning scent. He felt itchy, tight and loose at the same time, his muscles a little wobbly and spent from his exertion in the pool. His cheeks burned, his eyes prickled, and he began to sweat in earnest. He was maybe crying, too, but he didn’t feel like he was. Yes, tears were streaming out of him, but it didn’t feel the same as Friday night when his sobs felt like they were physically wrenched from his body by an outside force. Now he met no resistance in himself; he just breathed and let salty tears and sweat seep out of him.

The constricted knot he had been carrying around in his chest for the last few days started little by little to unbind itself. He could feel each humming pulsing heartbeat. His heart was used to feeling like a bird slamming up against the sides of a wooden cage: shuddering, clawing to escape. Now it was different. The cage was open but he didn’t know what he was even trying to escape from.

Isak didn’t know much about meditation or prayer, in fact he had resolutely rejected everything about religion he felt his mom had foisted upon him with her obsessive-bordering-on-unhinged Faith with a capital F. But in that moment, listening to his breath and letting something go, he felt like maybe he needed to ask someone or something bigger than himself for some help. He just didn’t know how.

The glass door to the sauna room opened, startling Isak from his thoughts. A handsome and friendly looking man who was probably in his early 20s sat down and greeted him. Isak felt suddenly embarrassed that the stranger would be able to tell he had been crying and he stood up to leave.

“Didn’t mean to scare you off. You’re welcome to stay,” the guy said.

“No, it’s just. I’ve been in here so long I’m starting to feel like a wrung-out towel or a giant prune or something,” Isak said.

The guy laughed and met Isak’s eyes for a brief moment. Isak’s heart suddenly was rattling around like the ball bearing in a can of spray paint. He looked down at his flip-flops and made a move for the door.

“Well, see you around,” Isak said.

“I hope so,” the guy said. Isak was glad his cheeks were already flushed pink from the heat of the sauna. He felt like an idiot. But he also felt a stirring of something else, something he was trying hard to not be ashamed of anymore.

* * *

  
Isak entered the jacuzzi room and he found Linn there, alone, her eyes closed, possibly asleep?

He cleared his throat and asked, “Can I join you?”

Linn opened her eyes, nodded almost imperceptibly, and shut her eyes again.

 _Well at least she’s not going to try to have a heart to heart with me_ , Isak thought as he got into the bubbling bath.

For the next several minutes they both sat in silence, not exactly awkward but not terribly comfy either, until the pool’s bubbling mechanism stopped.

Linn sighed and said, “This is the worst damn jacuzzi, you have to reset it every 10 minutes.” She fiddled with the buttons and the bubbles roared up again.

After a few more minutes of silence, Linn said, “You know, when I was 13 or 14, I used to masturbate with jet stream water from a hot tub. My parents had a jacuzzi-style bathtub.”

Isak did a double take. He couldn’t have been more surprised if she had casually said she’d been keeping a pile of dead bodies in her room and was glad he hadn’t noticed the weird smell.

When he realized Linn was not going to elaborate any further, Isak said, “Wait, what?! Also how? And why?”

“What do you mean, how?”

“Um…like you didn’t use your fingers? It was just with water?”

“Sure. Water is just pressure, isn’t it? It’s not that much different than any other pressure, or like a massage vibrator.”

“Wouldn’t the water go, you know, up there?”

“Up where?”

“I don’t know, like the cervix?”

“Isak, I realize you’re more into guys and all but do you actually know how women's bodies work?”

Isak started cracking up then, uncontrollably. Linn laughed, too, a sort of rare occurrence for her.

“Why did you tell me this? Here of all places?” Isak asked.

Linn said, “I don’t know, really. It just sort of came to me. Seeing as we’re in a jacuzzi and all. We don’t actually talk that much and I thought it might be like, I don’t know, an ice breaker?”

“Wow. If that’s your version of an ice breaker remind me never to play Truth or Dare with you. And you didn’t answer my question. Why was this your preferred method of ummm…jilling off?” That got them both cracking up again.

Linn said, “Well, let’s see. When I was a kid my mom caught me touching myself. More than once. My parents kind of freaked out and made me see a child psychologist. They thought maybe I'd been, you know. And they’re kind of religious, too, so you can imagine. Once they figured out that I was just doing it because I liked it, I had it drilled into me that if I touched myself like that no boy would like me and I would go to hell, basically. So, I found a loophole, I guess.”

“Wow,” Isak said. “Man, that sucks. I’m glad my mom was too crazy to notice if I was was, you know….”

“…Walking the dog? Cleaning the pipes?”

“Wow, Linn. I have to say this was not the topic I expected us to be talking about.”

Linn shrugged.

Isak said, “You know, I didn’t realize girls actually masturbated until Eva told me she did.”

“Yeah, isn’t that crazy? That sort of thing drives me nuts. Like yes, duh, girls masturbate. Like there are certain things that we just aren’t supposed to talk about or even acknowledge as a society. You don’t even want to know what my period and sex talks were like with my mom. I basically had to put myself back into therapy after them.”

They sat there for a minute without saying anything. Linn adjusted the nobs for the jet streamers again. Finally, Isak said, “Um, Linn? Can I ask you something?”

“Ok.”

“Um, so, you have like, depression?”

“Yeah.”

“And you see a therapist for it?”

“Yeah, not the same one my parents sent me to back in the day, that was more like conversion therapy. But, yeah, I have a therapist. And a psychopharmacologist.”

“And it’s helpful?”

“I think so.”

“And your meds, they make you feel better?”

“Well, here’s the thing with my type of depression. When I’m not on my meds...there have been times...I mean. It's hard to talk about. When I _am_ on my meds, I’m still tired a lot and everything is a little…beige…I guess. But it’s way better than the alternative. It’s a trade-off I can manage.”

Isak said, “Wow. Ok. Thanks. For telling me, I mean, not thanks for being depressed. My mom’s depressed. And a lot of other things.”

“Yeah, Eskild kind of hinted there was some serious stuff going on there.”

“Yeah, it was sort of a shit show for a while. My dad couldn’t deal. I couldn’t deal. But I don’t know, I guess I never really tried to understand what was going on with her. She freaked me out too much. It was like I didn’t know my own mom anymore.”

“Yeah, sad to say, people with depression or mental illness are not always the easiest to understand. We’re not very likable sometimes.”

“I think you’re likable.”

“That’s sweet of you to say. But it’s not like I don’t know what I’m like. It’s not like a mystery that I get sad and it’s impossible for me get out of bed sometimes. It's hard to just leave the house and be like, a normal person who smiles a lot for fun. My brain has its own agenda. When I’m in that place, it’s just where I am, ya know?

“I think so, yeah. Um, Linn? Do you know anything about Bipolar Disorder?”

“Not a ton. I mean, I know what it _is_ but I don’t have any personal experience with it. But I think the depression part is a little different than what I have. Doesn’t last as long but is more intense, maybe? Why?”

“Um. It’s Even, actually. He’s bipolar. Has Bipolar Disorder. However you say it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“And you just found out about it?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“And that’s why you haven’t left the house all weekend?”

“Pretty much.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what, I take it back. There was this girl I knew back in group who had Bipolar Type 2. But she didn’t talk much and only went to a few meetings.”

“You don’t know what happened to her?”

Linn shook her head. “I will say this, just from my own experience with my parents. They didn’t get it at first. They tried for a really long time to say things like ‘Chin up! Hang in there! You’ll get over it! God will answer your prayers…’ etc etc. It wasn’t until things got really bad that I think they realized this wasn’t just going to go away if I tried hard enough. It’s my brain. Too many or too few chemicals and you get a clogged up brain that doesn’t work the way it should.”

“But they’re better about it now? Your parents, I mean?”

Linn shrugged. “They’re trying their best. We’re all just trying our best.”


	14. Comics

* * *

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Image link if it does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/yxg6nc4p4lzp6dx/MPDB.jpg?dl=0)
> 
> [Image 2 link if it does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/93jqepkos9nlrsv/56shadesofgray.jpg?dl=0)
> 
> [Image 3 link if it does not embed properly](https://www.dropbox.com/s/csysg43oon3j6zi/selfcare.jpg?dl=0)
> 
> The look and tone of these comics were inspired by the drawings in "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" and illustrator Gemma Correll. Check them out they are amazing!


	15. Unsent Letter to Isak

Wednesday, Dec 7, 2016

Dear Isak,

             I don’t think I will ever actually send this letter. But my therapist suggested I write a letter to you. She said it might help me feel better and “break through some of my anxiety, fear and shame-based decision making patterns”. (Such a therapist thing to say, right? She also said I could try to write a second letter _as_ you in response to this original letter but that just seems a little overkill, doesn't it? Like, I don’t need to pretend I’m you in order to figure out that all I really want is for you to forgive me).

             I don’t know if writing this will help or not. I’m not very good with words sometimes. Drawing is easier. Like, right now, I could write pages and pages and use thousands of words to try to explain to you how I’m feeling and how sorry I am about what happened and for keeping my disorder a secret from you and what it’s like to live with this thing that makes your thoughts, actions and life spin out of your control while you just sort of stand by and watch. Like I’m a train leaving the station and I’m also left waving good-bye to it at the same time, standing alone on the empty platform. (Like an old school steam engine train station, back in the day when men in army uniforms waved their caps and women waved handkerchiefs and blew kisses and people in love chased the train down the platform, their arms and fingers outstretched until the last possible second). A drawing could accomplish that in way less page time and also be understood in any language if it’s done right. But I’ll try anyway.

              So. Yeah. I kind of feel like fucking shit right now. Sorry to be crass. I feel: asleep with my eyes open; lost; agitated; discouraged. (Basically look up “depressed” in an online thesaurus and you should get the point). My head hurts with an incessant pressure, like a golum-esque creature has latched onto my brain; also like I’m viewing the world through a thick pane of wavy glass; and like my lungs and heart are getting squeezed like a dirty dish sponge; or as if I could sleep for a thousand years like a fairy-tale person and still be tired when I woke up again. Mostly, I feel like I’m trapped down a well, screaming for help. But no one can hear me or rescue me.

             Depression. Yeah, it’s the worst. It affects everything. How I feel, what I think, what I can and can’t do, how all my senses perceive the world. I have zero: energy, motivation, concentration, enjoyment, hope, optimism. I have too much: guilt, irritation, fatigue, heartache, emptiness, apathy, nothingness. Things I normally like to do give me no pleasure, which makes me even more depressed because I can’t even enjoy the things I know I _should_ be enjoying and have always enjoyed but I can’t envision ever enjoying them again. So why bother getting out of bed? Moving off the couch? Leaving the house? I want to do things, be normal. But I’m stuck. I can’t move. Because it’s all just pointless. Then I start getting filled with anxiety and dread about the future. I’m afraid of going full Cuckoo’s Nest: ending up in the hospital, being institutionalized forever, unable to handle my own brain or body. I know what my head is capable of and it’s scary knowing I’m not in control. And there’s the overwhelming loneliness, too.

             Sorry if that paragraph was the definition of Debbie Downer but it’s really hard to explain this to people who’ve never experienced depression before. Yes, of course, everyone gets sad, people get hurt all the time, they lose loved ones, people grieve terrible losses and live through unthinkably awful circumstances like poverty, abuse, famine, and wars. (Which ends up being another thing I feel guilty about! How lucky I am to have a supportive family and all the resources I need to get on the “path to wellness” but I am still powerless once I get caught up in these cycles of mania and depression). But for other people it seems like there’s always the light at the end of the tunnel: “It will be ok. Everything will work out. It will get better.” Imagine hearing those words and knowing deep in your bones that it’s a lie because you know this empty feeling is forever. At least, it feels that way and feeling is everything. “Since feeling is first”. (That’s a line from a poem I like, sorry to be a bit pretentious).

             Anyway, here is a joke to lighten the mood. Q: Why is depression like a vacuum? A: Because it sucks.

             Wah-wah. Sorry.

            The reason I’m going into all this is not so you’ll feel bad for me or to excuse my behavior or anything. I just. I really like you. I want you to be a part of my life and I was scared you’d learn all this crazy shit about me and be done with me. I know I’m not easy. But you just felt so right, you clicked with me in a way I didn’t know was possible. And I fucked it up. I hope you’ll understand a little more why I tried to keep my disorder hidden from you. I get that it was like a lie by omission, and I have no excuse except I was scared. And I’m sorry. And I totally get that now you’ll never want to see me again. I blew it. I get it.

            So, here are few things I wanted to tell you in person but I guess I’ll never get the chance now. I don’t want to forget them, so I’ll write them down for posterity.

            I like your teeth. They are ridiculously cute teeth. I’m glad you never got braces as a kid. You have the most perfectly _you_ teeth. I like the way your curls tuft out of your multi-colored selection of snapbacks. I like running my hands through your hair and tracing all the little tendrils and curls. If I could spend hours doing that, I would. I like the way you get this little crinkle between your eyebrows and say “huh?” whenever I say something that confuses or surprises you. I like to surprise you. It’s because you are an easy target. I’m sorry for that (but not too sorry). I like how your nose smushes up against my face a bit when we kiss. I liked how at first you were so shy around me. And when I got you to laugh for the first time it was this great, guttural laugh and you had about 20 dimples in your cheeks. I don’t have much to say about your lips and the dip of your cupid’s bow except that you could easily make many women insanely jealous about how perfect it is. Same with your eyelashes. I like the sharpness of your jaw and cheekbones and the soft dimple on your chin. I like your hardness and softness. Basically, if it wasn’t already obvious, I like your face a lot. (And your body too, of course, but it’s easier to describe someone’s face and still be considered romantic. But when you start getting into the nitty gritty of describing chest muscles and abs and collar bones and dicks it gets a little too Mom-Reading-Erotica-on-the-Train sort of thing).

            I’ve never told you about the first day of school, when I saw you for the first time. It was after school got out and you were waiting alone in the courtyard, looking at your phone. You got some message that you must not have liked because you got that crinkle between your eyebrows and looked really agitated and then sad for a few moments. Then your friends, whom I gathered you had been waiting for, approached you and your whole demeanor transformed. Your smile and eyes lit up when you all greeted each other with fist bumps and started chatting about the first day back. I could tell how much they meant to you. I was sitting on one of the picnic benches and had a sort of downward view on the whole scene and could hear your conversation. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I didn’t know anyone at Nissen yet and was curious. You and your friends were joking around about all the hot new 1st year girls and I loved how blasé and eyeroll-y you were about it. Like you had much better things (or people) to do. I wondered if you were into girls or not. And then you guys started freestyle rap battling and it was one of the best and most hilarious and also kind of awkward things I’d seen that day. So yeah, I was a creeper, I admit, but I just liked you without even knowing you and that is rare, right?

            There are many things I wish we could have been able to do together. I wish we could have met each other’s families. I would have liked to go out clubbing with you and your roommates and see you totally lose it on the dance floor and not give a shit if you looked like an idiot or not. We’d just be sweaty and ecstatic and kiss for ages under the rainbow disco lights. I would have liked to draw you over and over again, in different styles, different times of day, different qualities of light. I’d draw you so many times I could do it free hand with my eyes closed and still know it was you. I wish we’d had more time to just do regular every day things together, like studying or cutting class so we could make out in the basement maintenance closet and then get teased by our friends because of our obvious hickeys. I wish you could have met some of my friends from Bakka, too.

            I wish we could have taken a camping trip up North to Tromsø, just the two of us, and see the immense swirling cosmos above us and freeze our asses off. I would have liked to whisper “I love you” under a canopy of stars so vast it might make us feel small but wouldn’t, because we’d have each other. I would have liked that.

Love,  
Even


	16. "Hope is the thing with feathers"

_“So you…So you trust his ex telling you he doesn’t have feelings for you? Smart, Isak! Best thing I’ve heard all day. Wow! Wow. How about asking Even how he feels? He’s not brain dead just because he had a manic episode, right. Just talk with him when he’s calmed down.”_

* * *

 

“ **Hope is the thing with feathers”**

Hope rises up in my throat.  
It grabs me by the coat

collar and shakes my lapel.  
“ _Shush. Not now_ ,” I tell it

and it shrinks back down.  
But I still hear the flapping sound

of persistent wings.  
If Hope is a thing, it sings.

Maybe not too loud. Maybe a hum,  
maybe the pulse of a faraway drum.

But it stirs. It insists.  
It says, “ _This this this.”_


	17. Dream Sequence

When Isak finally mustered up the courage to call Even on Thursday night, his phone rang and rang before going straight to voicemail.

Isak did not know that was because Even was asleep. But the special ring tone Even programmed into his phone for Isak’s number – a maddeningly catchy electro-pop song that Isak always pretended to hate but secretly liked, much to Even's teasing enjoyment – must have weaved its way into his sleeping brain. Because Even is now dreaming of a dance club. Isak is with him: they are dancing and jumping and kissing and sweating and laughing and feeling feeling feeling. They are maybe having sex too right in the middle of the dance floor but it all blends together into one pulsing sensation of closeness and connection. Their fingers spark off each other, competing with the disco lights.

Even spins around wildly and pumps his fist in the air in time to the music and now he has lost sight of Isak in the crowd. Now he is bumping up against different bodies and now he is kissing a stranger. They kiss for awhile before Even remembers that they have been having an affair. The stranger is Sonja and her lips are all down around Even’s jaw and neck and their hands are in each other’s hair like a frenzy. He has to bend way down for his lips to reach hers and he realizes it is over between them. It makes him sad, kissing her like this and liking it so much, knowing that it is the last time. He understands that he loves her and will miss her. He wants to tell her this but can’t because the music is too loud and he doesn’t want to stop kissing and he doesn’t want to cry either. Sonja’s lips feel so familiar and Even closes his eyes and a shiver thrills along his scalp and now the kisses are different, but still familiar. The lips taste like Isak's and they feel the way Isak kisses him. Even has been kissing both of them this whole time without realizing it, together but separately.

The club is also the set of a movie and all the dancers are extras in the film. Because the filmmakers have to record the leads speaking their dialogue, there is no actual music playing and all the extras are dancing to the music in their heads. Everyone’s rhythm is unique – off-beat and a bit herky-jerky – but the director assures everyone that it will look fine in post. All the bodies will be one teeming mass, moving together but separately.

The film set is actually part of an elaborate sound stage, more like a theatrical stage for the school's revue showcase. Even looks up into the tall fly space above him from which all the scenery and lighting equipment and microphones are hanging somewhat perilously. Dangling above him is a light bulb attached to a string. He reaches up for the string and he pulls. The whole night club, which is a painted backdrop and also attached to the string, comes crashing down.

The crowd scatters, dust billows, but no one is screaming or hurt, thank God. The director yells “Cut! Take 10!” and the union men file in to start repairing the damaged set.

Even is ashamed and does not want to tell anyone it was his fault for breaking everything. He sneaks away before they can fire him from his first official job on a movie set.

He decides to hitchhike home. A man driving a pick-up truck pulls over and tells him to get in the back. Even hops into the bed of the truck and the man speeds off. Guns it. They are hell-racing down the highway. Even is desperately trying to hold on. Wind and exhaust fill his lungs. A hive of motorcycles swarms around the truck, engines buzzing menacingly. Even is blinded by their headlights. He hears his mother’s voice telling him she warned him not to get in the back of the truck, she knew it was too dangerous. Even doesn’t know who is driving. He decides to leap from the bed of the truck onto the median, which is covered in feathers.  
  


* * *

 

When Even woke up, it was with a jolting falling sensation. His muscles spasmed and the first thing he saw with his bleary heavy eyes was the LED light of his phone's notification screen. His heart jolted when he saw the message was from Isak:

_Tried to call you. Hope you’re okay. Give me a ring when you feel like it ❤_

Even looked at the screen for a long time. He felt something squirming around inside him. He tried to ignore it but he couldn't. His mouth twitched, the muscles felt rusty and ill-fitted, under used. He reached for the notepad he keeps at the side of his bed. Words poured out of him and he wrote furiously, enjoying the scratchy sound of his pencil racing across the page:

_Like finding a bonus level on a favorite game you’ve already beaten._

_Like a note that falls out from a book after you’ve read the final word._

_A page slipped between the pages._

_The special note between B and C._

_It changes everything!_

_I scrolled through all your old text messages and read them all backwards._

_There may have been a secret message._

_Play it backwards! Look at it in a mirror! Written in invisible ink! Expands in water!_

_There are some words you can say that have more than one meaning._

_Sometimes you say one thing and mean another._

_You can regret something and still want to start all over again._

He looked down at what he'd written and felt suddenly terribly foolish. And still so tired. He couldn't look at either his phone or his notebook anymore, so he put them away and shut his eyes again.

The flickering flare-up of hope inside him, however, refused to sleep so easily.


	18. Even’s Text Message: A Villanelle

_Dear Isak._ Soon it will be 21:21.  
There are a thousand things I want to say.  
I forgot it’s not possible to lose someone

because everyone is alone anyway.  
In another universe, in infinite space,  
soon the time too will be 21:21.

There, in a room with sun-yellow curtains,  
I’d tell you all about my broken brain.  
I’m sorry I hurt you. I forgot that losing someone

and loving them is a double-faced coin:  
the black hole in the heart of the Milky Way.  
I’m sitting where we first met. It’s 21:21  
  
and the night air smells like rain. When it comes,  
I wish it could wash the pain I caused away.  
  
_Dear Even._ You’re not alone. You are brave. Please stay.


	19. The Boy Who Slept Under a Bed of Ice and The Boy Who Couldn’t Hold His Breath Under Water

_Soon to be adapted into an animated feature film by Even Bech Næsheim_

* * *

 

Once upon a time in the Northern lands, there lived two boys. They were no longer children, but not yet grown men. Their names were Even (“Lucky Breeze”) and Isak (“He Who Laughs”). Even was born under the constellation Aquarius, the carrier of water. Isak came into the world on a night when both Cancer and Gemini were crossing the sky and neither could make up their mind about him. So he was ruled by both Mercury and the Moon, equal parts stoic and soft-centered. The stars the boys were born under were not crossed, but nor were they purely lucky either. Like any tale worth telling, their story contained multitudes of joy and myriads of sorrow.

The boy Even grew tall and handsome. He made friends with his namesake, the mercurial wind. His easy laughter carried across the fjord valleys and echoed off the clouds, bringing happiness to all who heard it. His legs were so long he could reach up and pluck the stars from the sky. He gave them as gifts to all his friends as well as strangers, too.

But creatures exist in this world that cannot bear to see joy and happiness in others because they have none of their own. One such creature was a devilish troll, who once made a magic mirror to distort the appearance of everything it reflects. When you looked in this mirror, all beauty and goodness disappeared, replaced by ugliness, sadness and hate. One day this mirror accidentally broke and its shards scattered across the world like dust on the four winds. Since that day, the tiny fragments – each no bigger than a grain of sand – have landed in men and women’s eyes, freezing their hearts and making them see only the worst parts of themselves and the world around them.

Even was one such unlucky person who felt a piercing in his eye and didn’t know why the green valleys and blue sky of his home suddenly looked dull, muddy and gray. He looked at himself and saw a monster. He cowered in fear. He went searching for more and more mirrors to see if the reflection ever changed, but it did not. He traveled to the Northern most tip of his home country, out to the most clear, placid lake. He peered into his reflection in the crystal waters but he saw the selfsame beast staring back at him. He felt so overcome with sadness that he decided then to plunge down into the murky depths below and end his young life.

But before he could, Persephone, Queen of Hades and Queen of Summer alike, saw him in her magic scrying pool. She took pity on his plight and knew that it was not yet his time to join her down where wandering lost souls make their home. She could not fully reverse the troll’s ancient spell, but she made it so that the fragment in his eye was not permanent. She told Even that when he felt the mirror piece pierce his heart, he could dive into the enchanted lake and she would freeze it over for him. He could sleep there under the ice and it would protect him. She knew full well what it was like to be caught between worlds of darkness and light.

Lakes and rivers became Even’s favorite places and it was there that Isak spotted him for the first time. Isak was shy at first, stealing glances at Even from behind rocks or trees, never daring to approach the other boy or speak to him. Even had spotted him as well, but pretended not to notice. They played this game until Even couldn’t take it any more and threw a pebble at Isak.

“Ow!” Isak said, rubbing his head and coming out from behind a stand of tall leafy ferns. “What was that for?”

“Why do you keep hiding from me?” Even asked.

“I don’t know,” Isak said. “This is what I’ve always done.”

So the boys began talking and laughing and soon the sun was setting behind the hills, flooding them both with golden light. The moon rose and the stars twinkled above them and Even reached up up up to grab one for his new companion. Isak looked at the star and looked at Even as if they were one and the same.

“I have to leave now,” Even said.

“Where to?” asked Isak.

“That I cannot say.”

“Will we see each other again?” 

“Of that I am certain.”

They spent more days together, sitting and talking by lakes and streams. Even loved listening to Isak’s deep throaty laugh. Even realized he wanted nothing more than to entwine his fingers in the boy’s golden curls and kiss his lips and eyelids. But he didn’t know how to ask without being too forward and scaring him away. So Even got an idea. He dared Isak to jump into a lake with him and challenged him to an underwater breath-holding contest. Isak could never resist a competition so they both plunged under the water. Even was sneaky, however. He startled Isak by stealing a kiss! So Isak demanded a rematch. This time the other boy knew exactly what to do. Isak kissed Even back. And they both won the contest.

And so the boys fell in love.

Except something troubled Isak. Even would disappear for days on end and refuse to tell him where he went. At first Isak shrugged it off, but when Even disappeared for a full week he became so very worried. He asked around town if anyone had seen him? Most people shook their heads, but others remembered the boy who could fetch them the stars. They’d seen him heading up further North, to the frozen lands. Isak wanted to set out to find him, but without a trail of breadcrumbs or clues he would surely soon be lost. He needed to ask for help, but felt ashamed that he had lost his true love so easily.

The next time Even came back, Isak shot him a look of stone and kissed him with faraway lips. Even could tell Isak was hurt but he did not have the words to explain how or why the sliver of sadness so often pierced his spirit.

The next time Even set off alone Isak followed him. His feet grew cold and blistered and tired but he kept tracking his love through the woods and vales. Finally he ducked behind a boulder and watched as Even approached the crystal lake and plunged in. Fingers of thick ice began creeping from the edges towards the center of the lake. Isak felt a jolt of fear. He bolted out to the center of the lake, skidding and sliding, but the ice moved faster than his two legs. He reached the spot where Even dove down and was greeted with a bone-chilling sight.

His dearest love was trapped under the ice.

Even’s eyes were closed. His skin was greenish-hued and sickly pale. The tendrils of his hair billowed like seaweed. Isak pounded on the ice, hoping to break through, but it was too thick. He squinted and looked closely and saw that little bubbles still escaped from Even’s lips. Isak breathed a sigh of relief: Even was not dead. But he was caught in some spell, in a deep sleep that mirrored a watery grave.

Isak wept cold tears. He was at a loss for what to do next. Then he heard the sounds of a fiddle playing a slow, mournful tune. A _fossegrim_ emerged from behind a cascading waterfall that covered the entrance to a nearby cave. The creature was handsome, with long blond hair and shimmering skin; his well-defined muscles were covered scantily by bits of gillyweed and shells, despite the bitter cold.

Once he had finished playing his doleful tune he turned to Isak and said, “You are too young to be filled with such sorrows that I see in your eyes. What makes you weep so?”

Isak replied, “The boy I love is trapped under the ice and I don’t know how to save him.”

“Are you desirous of my help?” the _nøkk_ asked.

Isak knew that water creatures such as this were often slippery tricksters and not to be trusted. But he had come so far and didn’t know what else to do.

“Can you help me break through this ice barrier? Can you build a ladder to pull him out?” Isak asked.

“Yes, of course,” the being replied. “But I will need something in exchange.”

Isak had expected that. “What is it you want?”

“Nothing special. Just something that is light as a feather, but something the strongest of men cannot hold for longer than a few minutes.”

 _He means to trick me_ , thought Isak. _But I know this riddle. He means a bubble._

“Alright, I accept.” Isak was sure he had just beat the creature at his own game.

The _fossegrim_ took his long sharp nails and etched a circle in the ice like a fisherman’s hole, but large enough to pull Even out. He wove a ladder out of reeds. He admired his work and then turned to Isak with a smirk.

“And now my payment: your breath.”

Isak gasped. “What do you mean, my breath? Surely the answer to your riddle was a bubble. I would never have agreed if I knew you meant to steal my very breath from me! Do you mean to kill me, then?”

“Not kill! No, of course not! Do you take me for some petty murderer? One kiss is all I ask. And with that kiss, I lay claim to your breath. But it only belongs to me when you are under water.”

Isak had no choice. He had been bested.

The handsome _nøkk_ pressed his silver lips to Isak’s and inhaled with a shudder. Isak felt a little part of him getting pulled away and he was powerless to stop it.

He collapsed down on the ice and wrung his hands and cried. “How am I ever to rescue him now that I cannot hold my breath underwater? How am I ever to pull him out without killing myself, too?”

The water creature shrugged and said, “Maybe that was never supposed to be your task.” He picked up his fiddle and retreated back into his cave.

Isak peered down into the hole. He reached his hand into the water and cried out in pain. It was treacherously cold. Even was so close, only 15 or 20 feet below him, yet he was still unreachable. Isak had come all this way and he had failed.

Then a fish swam by, made up of every imaginable color. This rainbow fish was a rare sight and known throughout the land as a good luck omen and a bearer of blessings. Isak took it as a sign. He was not the type to give up easily. He had seen many a fisherman’s hut on the frozen lakes. He decided he would build such a hut and stay there until Even awoke. It may have been beyond Isak’s powers to save Even, but he would try his best to keep him safe.

So he did just that. He went into the woods and into town to gather all the supplies he needed to build his small hut. He got blankets, firewood, a fishing rod, a tea kettle. He learned from the fairies and healers who lived nearby which flowers and plants might be of use to Even when he awoke. He went to a library and got a large stack of books so he could read them aloud. He talked to Even about all his hopes and wishes for their future together. He told him all of his favorite jokes. He waited and never gave up.

Even, though sleeping, had heard his lover’s voice, however muffled and distant it seemed through the blanket of water and ice. The day came at last when the glass in Even’s heart retreated once again. He awoke and kicked up immediately to the surface, which was still covered in a thick icy wall but for a circular hole. He was puzzled, for usually the goddess Persephone melted the ice for him, but here instead was this peculiar opening. He poked his head up into the hut and took an enormous breath.

Even looked at Isak. Isak looked at Even. And both boys smiled once again.


	20. Epilogue: A Poem for Even at Christmas

**Streetlight Song**

Streetlamps burn auroras  
in the stinging snow;

we walk home and sounds like silver  
whispers fill the empty road. _Listen_ ,

I say. We stop. We breathe  
and echo out for miles. A streetlight

above us teeters on a wire.  
You kiss me underneath like it’s mistletoe.

Our lips spark: _Static_ ,  
I smile, rub my cheek to your hat,

collect the hidden electricity. I am lucent,  
lit—we shoot shocks, your lips sing.

I can hear the colors changing:  
red, yellow, green.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter!! Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has read and commented on this story. It has really meant the world to me!


End file.
